Patch Lifecycle

A state patch records semantic intent and evidence. It is not a replacement for a Git diff.

The lifecycle is:

proposed -> applied_in_fork -> evaluated -> approved/rejected -> promoted

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> Proposed
  Proposed --> AppliedInFork
  AppliedInFork --> Evaluated
  Evaluated --> Approved
  Evaluated --> Rejected
  Approved --> Promoted
  Proposed --> Stale
  AppliedInFork --> Conflicted
  Evaluated --> Stale
  Rejected --> [*]
  Promoted --> [*]

Additional states:

• stale
• conflicted

The patch should answer:

• what failure it addresses
• what hypothesis or evidence supports it
• what concrete artifact contains the project diff
• what eval validated it
• who or what approved it
• which commit or promotion contains it

Promotion should require evidence such as a passing eval, a passing test, or explicit human approval.

flowchart LR
  patch["patch"]
  failure["failure"]
  artifact["diff / log / file artifact"]
  eval["passing eval or test"]
  decision["approval decision"]
  promoted["promoted status"]

  patch -- addresses --> failure
  patch -- references --> artifact
  patch -- validated_by --> eval
  patch -- approved_by --> decision
  decision --> promoted